Mission Statement:
To help restore the proper relationship between our officials in Washington and the citizens of our nation, between bearing our own burdens and bearing one another’s burdens, among competing interests, and to promote the ideal of “doing all that is necessary to achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Why Romney picked Paul Ryan, and Who Romney was Trying to Please by Picking Paul Ryan

That Romney was over two weeks early in announcing
his selection of a running mate was odd.
That much is a given. To people
who have seen political campaigns from the inside—such as I—it’s downright
bizarre.

Contrary to popular belief, the selection
of a vice presidential candidate doesn’t help the presidential candidate. It really doesn’t. In fact, all it can do is hurt the
candidate. For that reason, most
presidential candidates prefer to pick running mates who are virtually unknown
outside their bailiwicks. Even then,
they make their picks known toward the end of the convention, when most of the
excitement—and public interest—has died down.

In my entire life, I’ve known only one
occasion in which the selection of a running mate has helped the
candidate. Even then, it was for
unconventional reasons.

When George H. W. Bush was running for
President in 1988, he publicly said that he would pick a running mate who would
show the nation what high standards Bush was setting for his
administration. Instead, he picked an
effete, over-privileged, bumbling oaf who, to this day, makes me wonder why
dumb blondes are always depicted as female.

A political insider explained to me that
the selection of Quayle was campaign strategist Lee Atwater’s idea. Quayle was a rabbit for the Democrats to
chase. The Democrats spent so much of
their time laughing at Quayle that they neglected to attack Bush, who was
little more than a résumé wearing a suit. Lackluster Bush laughed all the way
to the White House.

Mitt Romney’s strategists couldn’t
possibly be so uninformed as to think that the early selection of a running
mate would make him more popular with voters.
Who, then, did they expect to please?

To answer that question, we need look no
further than Romney and the “man” he picked.
Mitt Romney’s unconventional timing in his selection of Paul Ryan was
intended to please Wall Street’s trillion-dollar embezzlers and other
malefactors of great wealth. It was an
early signal that he is most certainly their man—one who will keep the cash
spigot pumping our money to Wall Street, keep America’s wars of aggression
going at full throttle, and complete the Bush/Obama agenda of shredding the
Constitution and trampling American liberties.

Paul Ryan has been almost consistently in
favor of interventionism where America
has no business, Wall Street embezzlement with no accountability, and a
shredding of the United States Constitution.

October 2001:Voted YES on spending $99 billion of our money on an
“economic stimulus” for bankers and other fat cats.

October
2002: Voted YES on authorizing military force in Iraq.

April 2003:Voted YES on spending $78 billion of our money for the
fraudulent and illegal wars in Iraq
& Afghanistan.

March
2004: Voted YES on approving removal of Saddam, which was against
international law.

October 2004:Voted YES on adopting the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, whitewashing the whole affair.

February 2005:Voted YES on federalizing rules for driver licenses. The
excuse given for this attack on American freedom is that it was intended “to
hinder terrorists.”

July 2005: Voted NO on deterring foreign arms transfers to
China.
(Like, who needs Taiwan
anyway?)

April
2006:Voted YES on continuing
intelligence gathering without civil oversight.

June
2006: Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no
exit date.

September 2006:Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without
a warrant.

January 2007: Voted NO on removing oil and gas exploration subsidies; that is, voted YES on continuing to subsidize oil and gas companies to the tune of up to $15 billion a year while the top five oil and gas companies were making profits close to $100 billion a year. (Source)

May 2007: Voted NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days.

August
2007:Voted YES on removing need for
FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad.

November
2007: Voted NO on regulating the subprime mortgage
industry, thereby helping to cause the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing
Great Recession.

June
2008: Voted NO on investigating Bush impeachment for lying about Iraq. Actually, it was an incredible series of
lies: weapons of mass destruction, connections to the CIA front al Qaeda, being
accessories to 911, and so on. The war,
which was highly profitable to Bush cohorts, killed over 600,000 civilians and
made refugees of 4,000,000 others.

December 2008: Voted
YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler.
As one of the provisions of this bill, the corporations got a bailout,
but hundreds of GM and Chrysler dealers lost their dealerships. See the above video debunking GM's claim that they had repaid the money "early and in full." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOaS2SymjQ4

January
2009: Voted NO on monitoring TARP funds to ensure more mortgage relief. In other words, he voted YES on “no
accountability for the trillions of dollars embezzled from the American
taxpayers and sent to Wall Street.” Here's a video of Paul Ryan shamelessly begging Congress to pass TARP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJBZYz858M

July
2009: Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. You didn’t see any of that money, did
you? The money didn’t go to the needy;
it went to the greedy, on your credit card.

March
2011:Voted NO on removing US armed
forces from Afghanistan.

February
2011:Voted YES on extending the
PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps.

September
2011: Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs and terrorism. This essentially means that he voted NO on military border patrols.

On many issues,
Paul Ryan voted quite reasonably. It’s
not the percentage of votes that counts, however. What counts is the net result of the votes.

Let’s say, for
example, a congressman voted against 100 needless bills that would have had a total cost
of several billion dollars, yet he voted for a half dozen highly dangerous bills that had a
total cost of several trillion dollars.

Let’s say he
voted for dozens of bills that were consistent with our social or religious
views, yet he voted for a few that presumed to authorize the government to spy
into your email accounts, record your telephone conversations, and label you a
domestic terrorist if you assert your constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Let’s say he
voted for dozens of cost-cutting measures but put us in debt to the tune of
over thirty trillion dollars for the benefit of the big banks and the military
industrial complex. Let’s say he further
voted against measures that would require accountability as to how those
missing trillions were spent.

There you have
Paul Ryan. You also have all the
evidence needed to show who Mitt Romney was trying to please when he picked
Ryan as his running mate several weeks before it was necessary. However he may posture as an adequate substitute for Ron Paul, he's still very much in the pockets of the Wall Street kleptocracy. Dan Quayle would have been an improvement.